“What kind of a Catholic do you want to be? One who makes an impact on the world, or one who is impacted by it?”

These were the words of a priest celebrating Mass the weekend after the Supreme Court issued its rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8. The reporter in me wished I’d had my digital recorder in my bag, as his words were clear, powerful and, well, very quotable. He spoke with love, while at the same time almost imploring Catholics to stand up for their beliefs and let their voices be heard. For those who believe, he said, it’s time to be counted.

My guess is from pulpit to blogosphere, we’ll be hearing a lot of the same thoughts in the coming months as Catholics increasingly will be ostracized for believing what the Church has held to be true for more than 2,000 years.

Of course, the news doesn’t stop there. On June 28, the Obama administration handed down its final rules regarding the HHS mandate, and Brian Fraga writes an updated story on the fight for religious freedom (Page 7). Pope Francis, too, is keeping busy at the Vatican, and British writer Austen Ivereigh looks at a new commission appointed by the pontiff to oversee the Vatican bank (Page 10).

Next week Vatican coverage will continue as we’ll have a piece on the pope’s first encyclical Lumen fidei (“The Light of Faith”), which was to be released July 5. The document, issued during the Year of Faith, is a combined work of Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who retired before it was completed. Said Pope Francis to a gathering of bishops in June:

“It’s an encyclical written with four hands, so to speak, because Pope Benedict began writing it and he gave it to me,” he said. “It’s a strong document. I will say in it that I received it and most of the work was done by him and I completed it.”

Finally, OSV Newsweekly has an exclusive interview on Page 6 with Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, who recently authored the book “Immigration and the Next America: Renewing the Soul of Our Nation.”

I had the opportunity to meet with the archbishop recently, and the Mexican native (and now U.S. citizen) shared some of his personal story as well as the frustrations he faces when immigration reform is derailed by politics. If you’re looking for more, a full transcript of the interview is online at osv.com.